Conversations: Straight Talk with America's Sister President

by Johnnetta B. Cole

Overview

Dr. Cole speaks directly to her younger  sisters--America's Black women--and calls out to them to  take an active role, as she is doing, to help make  their world a better  place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307773777
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/02/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	256 KB

About the Author

Johnnetta B. Cole is chair of the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute at Bennett College for Women and a former president of the college. She is president emerita of Spelman College and professor emerita of Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies at Emory University. A nationally known African American feminist-intellectual, she is the author of several books, including Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President and Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities.

Editorial Reviews

``We African American women must cure whatever ails us,'' states the president of Spelman College in Atlanta, in this anecdotal discourse--on her life, and on race, feminism and education--addressed directly, but not exclusively, to young black women. In a wise, warm and animated voice, she recalls the formation of her racial identity in a black upper-middle-class family in Jacksonville, Fla., her studies in anthropology, her interracial marriage and her growing political consciousness. Criticizing provincialism and apathy, Coles exhorts parents to teach their children to be proud of their ethnic heritage and to avoid bigotry. Arguing that education is the most effective instrument for change, she eschews any exclusionary ethnic-centered view, but calls for a ``worldcentric education'' based on social awareness and responsibility, participatory learning and respect for diversity. Author tour. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Cole, an educator and the first African American woman to head historic Spelman College in Atlanta, exhorts and enlightens readers in her impassioned book, which she refers to as a dialog. Cole provides a brief autobiographical sketch to let readers know ``where she is coming from'' and to remind them of the ties that bind African American women together. She admonishes readers, especially black ``sisters,'' to take an active stance against the ``isms'' that continue to plague America: racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, and isolationism. She provides some notable and concrete solutions while allowing readers to maintain the dialog by writing their own conclusions to her urgent message. Written in a lively conversational style, this necessary book is unabashedly recommended.-- Angela Washington- Blair, Brookhaven Coll. Learning Resource Ctr., Farmers Branch, Tex.

Library Journal

Cole's inauguration as president of Spelman, a black college for women, caught headlines when Bill and Camille Cosby made a $20 million bequest. Cole's "Conversations" provides some insight into that extraordinary gesture. These essays reverberate with purpose, conviction, and confidence. Making it clear she is talking with her "sisters," she speaks to the issues of racism, sexism, provincialism, self-help, and education as they affect African American women, beginning with her own successful story. Firm in her sympathy for all black struggles, she is equally assertive on women's issues. To counter the burdens of racism and sexism she holds her sisters to her own large visions of responsibility and power, urging them to claim their country and their world. While her analyses are well reasoned, it is her bracing encouragement and practical directions that are likely to make this an influential book for young black women. Her thinking is also generous enough to profit any young person facing today's issues.

Virginia Dwyer

"Conversations is must reading for  Americans of all races." — Alvin F.  Poussaint, M.D.

From the Publisher